While keeping an eye on day-to-day data and speculating about whether 2013 is going to overcome the odds and break last year's records, one tends to forget about the wider implications and what this actually is all about. A tree is incredibly interesting, but in the end it's all about the fore...

I was hesitating whether I should write about this (besides my personal combination of busy/lazy) for a couple of days, because the Arctic is such an amazing place that it's easy to get carried away. When you see something for the first time, it's tempting to go: "Oh my Gawd, that haz got to b...

Crackageddon
the hive mind here notably outperforms scientific journals
scientific journals (aka event obituary repositories).
self-correcting independent thinking here ... can run circles too around the all-assimilating Borg.
Seriously?
And who are the Borg? The scientists? Those who are charged with providing defendable evidence based observation and theory?
The purpose of this blog may be diametrically opposed to that of WUWT, but sometimes the comments are disturbingly similar.

I was hesitating whether I should write about this (besides my personal combination of busy/lazy) for a couple of days, because the Arctic is such an amazing place that it's easy to get carried away. When you see something for the first time, it's tempting to go: "Oh my Gawd, that haz got to b...

Actually the lows over the UK traditionally and I think (still) currently come from the South West, i.e. the Atlantic, not from the north i.e. Greenland.
Traditional UK autumn weather is gales and rain.
As an aside; Is this years Greenland mass loss published? I haven't seen it yet.

As winter sets in, the Arctic Ocean freezes up. But because waters near the continental land masses warm up so much during the melting season (see for instance this image from August 11th 2012), they have to give off a lot of heat before they're cold enough to freeze. The waters warm up so muc...

As for "natural cycles", where they exist, they have causes.
So which "natural cycle" is causing Arctic sea ice to reduce below that seen since before the last ice age?
"Natural cycles" is not an explanation it is a symptom, every climate cycle is the result some underlying change be it orbital mechanics or solar output or something else.
What is the attribution of THIS "climate cycle"

Talking about cool, yet depressing vids: Peter Sinclair from the Climate Denial Crock of the Week blog has produced a new video for The Yale Forum on Climate Change & The Media (link) that covers this melting season and shows the reactions from several experts: Great stuff. Thank you, Peter!

Talking about cool, yet depressing vids: Peter Sinclair from the Climate Denial Crock of the Week blog has produced a new video for The Yale Forum on Climate Change & The Media (link) that covers this melting season and shows the reactions from several experts: Great stuff. Thank you, Peter!

All models are wrong, but some are useful, as the saying goes. However, when looking at how Arctic sea ice decline is modeled, one might be tempted to say that all sayings are useful, but some are wrong. To be fair, I should be the last person taking a piss at climate models. Hundreds of brill...

And when I say 'Arctic', I of course automatically imply 'Northern Hemisphere'. You know, the place where most of the world's agriculture is based. One thing I have noticed this melting season, is how high pressure areas persistently remained over Greenland (causing, for instance, the decrease i...

My comment above was not meant to curtail conversation. It was merely aimed at encouraging more precise conversation/observation.
So ... "I should mention that I am just a know nothing amateur on all things here as would be any citizen;" ... is not necessary. Most of us are amateurs.
With regard to Enno's reference, I would suggest that the relevant criteria is the insulating properties of ice and the resulting heat flow from the different levels of insulation. Oh, and the fact that MYI is likely to be deeper into (furthest from the edge) of the ice pack.

Quite soon after the inception of this blog, data from the PIOMAS model became a prominent element in discussions on ice thickness and volume. Though corroborated by on-the-ground observations and satellite data, PIOMAS remained a model and so practically everyone was careful in not attaching to...

Thanks Chris
So what Lodger actually meant was that the 3rd Sept 2012 SIA has a negative anomaly of 49.54% in comparison with the 2nd Sept Daily SIA averages based on the CR (Chris R) dataset of Cryosphere Today values. Or that it is 53.25% of the '80 -'99 daily baseline value of CT SIA.
AmbiValent - look up Black Swan. Wikipedia - "Juvenal's phrase was a common expression in 16th century London as a statement of impossibility. The London expression derives from the Old World presumption that all swans must be white because all historical records of swans reported that they had white feathers." etc...

Quite soon after the inception of this blog, data from the PIOMAS model became a prominent element in discussions on ice thickness and volume. Though corroborated by on-the-ground observations and satellite data, PIOMAS remained a model and so practically everyone was careful in not attaching to...

I scrolled back to July, but didn't notice an "Open Thread", so I'm posting here.
I like this site, I really do. I think Neven is doing a wonderful job. But the commentators, not so much.
Science requires clear concise communication, ambiguity is anathema. Part of this is accomplished with common reference and language. So how about it people?
Recently I've seen stuff like "Black Dragon" events, or was it "Golden King" or some other nonsense.
Today I find, "CT SIA sits at 49.54% of climate level for Sep 2, 2012"
What the hell is "climate level"? Given that CT are reporting for 3rd Sept, should I believe that the area has reduced by half overnight?
How about less excitement, and a few more deep calming breaths?

Quite soon after the inception of this blog, data from the PIOMAS model became a prominent element in discussions on ice thickness and volume. Though corroborated by on-the-ground observations and satellite data, PIOMAS remained a model and so practically everyone was careful in not attaching to...

During the melting season I'm writing (bi-)weekly updates on the current situation with regards to Arctic sea ice (ASI). Central to these updates are the daily IJIS sea ice extent (SIE) and Cryosphere Today sea ice area (SIA) numbers, which I compare to data from the 2005-2011 period (NSIDC h...

Jim: I expect the lack of curvature is because ice is escaping via the Strait, not from melt.
Colin: Bit of a dead herring there. Any appreciable thickness of natural ice especially with a snow covering is white. Thin translucent ice will break because of wave action.

There are several scientific organisations that keep an eye on the Arctic sea ice cover and put out graphs to inform us of the amount of ice that is left. You can see most, if not all, of them on the ASI Graphs webpage. I expect the record on most of these graphs to be broken in weeks to come. -...

No, not possible. The rate of descent will start to slow soon. The sun is low enough in the sky that refreeze is possible. This melt is being driven by water temperatures and it takes heat out of the water to do it.

There are several scientific organisations that keep an eye on the Arctic sea ice cover and put out graphs to inform us of the amount of ice that is left. You can see most, if not all, of them on the ASI Graphs webpage. I expect the record on most of these graphs to be broken in weeks to come. -...

There are several scientific organisations that keep an eye on the Arctic sea ice cover and put out graphs to inform us of the amount of ice that is left. You can see most, if not all, of them on the ASI Graphs webpage. I expect the record on most of these graphs to be broken in weeks to come. -...

Yeah, politicians of all stripes should shoulder the majority of the blame. For instance on my side of the Pond, they promised the "Greenest Government Ever", ... until they got into power. Thieving lying bastards the lot of them.
But, have you ever thought of what change requires? How investment, profits, pensions, wages, etc are intertwined?
Assume you want to phase out oil. And replace it with solar? Where do you get the panels, how do you pay for them. Who is going to do the buying? Where is the storage technology? Who owns that?
Whilst I have no sympathy for politicians, they do at least hold Damocles Sword should they chose to use it. And its about time some of them did.

There are several scientific organisations that keep an eye on the Arctic sea ice cover and put out graphs to inform us of the amount of ice that is left. You can see most, if not all, of them on the ASI Graphs webpage. I expect the record on most of these graphs to be broken in weeks to come. -...

There are several scientific organisations that keep an eye on the Arctic sea ice cover and put out graphs to inform us of the amount of ice that is left. You can see most, if not all, of them on the ASI Graphs webpage. I expect the record on most of these graphs to be broken in weeks to come. -...

There are several scientific organisations that keep an eye on the Arctic sea ice cover and put out graphs to inform us of the amount of ice that is left. You can see most, if not all, of them on the ASI Graphs webpage. I expect the record on most of these graphs to be broken in weeks to come. -...

There already was a suspicion that this year would become a record year for Greenland ice melt, after all the real-time information we received from Dr. Jason Box with regards to the reflectivity of the Greenland Ice Sheet (see Dark side of Greenland), the extremely high temperatures in much of...

Just like with calling the CT SIA maximum, I can't even get the timing for the last open thread right. But the March open thread was getting full. This should be the last one. I think. image by Paul Nicklen, found on the Narwhal's Left Tooth blog I'll be gone for a couple of days, but should be...

During the melting season I'm regularly writing updates on the current sea ice extent (SIE) as reported by IJIS (a joint effort of the International Arctic Research Center and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) and compare it to the sea ice extents in the period 2005-2010. NSIDC has a good ...

NSIDC has just released its April analysis. Some interesting tidbits: Arctic sea ice declined slowly through most of April. Because of the slow decline in April, ice extent for the month as a whole did not approach record lows, as it did in March. However, ice extent began to decline more quickl...

I'm regularly writing updates on the current sea ice extent (SIE) as reported by IJIS (a joint effort of the International Arctic Research Center and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) and compare it to the sea ice extents in the period 2005-2009. The IJIS graph is favoured by almost everyo...

Apparently the deniers cannot even innovate on their own!
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/07/17/get-your-ice-here-new-wuwt-sea-ice-machine/#more-22089
Read the comments. So funny. Many along the lines of "Brilliant, Anthony, what a clever idea, you are marvellous!".

I'm regularly writing updates on the current sea ice extent (SIE) as reported by IJIS (a joint effort of the International Arctic Research Center and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) and compare it to the sea ice extents in the period 2006-2009. The IJIS graph is favoured by almost everyo...

I'll be regularly writing updates on the current sea ice extent (SIE) as reported by IJIS (a joint effort of the International Arctic Research Center and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) and compare it to the sea ice extents in the period 2006-2009. The JAXA graph is favoured by almost ev...